Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011
I wrote to the City of Cambridge's Community Development Division and they've told me the Watertown Branch is earmarked for trail development with no ETA. A possible pedestrian bridge would also span the Fitchburg Line and land on the opposite side with a connection to the Somerville and Arlington Minuteman bike-trail routes. Personally I thought recessing the Fitchbeurg Line completely in N. Cambridge makes more sense than creating another aerial bridge over that track like Alewife Brook Pkwy.
Watertown Branch also doesn't reach Watertown Sq. before it gets encroached by adjacent buildings, so it's nearly useless as a potential transit line. The middle section of it was abandoned in 1960 long before there were landbanking laws, so only the 1996-abandoned section between Grove and School Streets is under lock and key (Cambridge leg will be when Pan Am's ongoing abandonment filing gets approved and they broker a sale to the state). If it were still intact to the Square and the 2000-abandoned Bemis Branch on the other side, the T would've certainly purchased it in 1976 when it bought out nearly all of B&M's northside trackage. But because it was cut the line was one of only 3 or 4 lines that B&M held onto. The *original* 1940's to 1960's Red Line extension proposal ended at East Watertown/Mt. Auburn St. and proposed a Mattapan-like high-speed line running north on the Branch to Alewife and Arlington Heights. Then a later western leg of that trolley line to Watertown Carhouse and A-line transfer sometime later when it was safe to displace the freight on the then-intact Branch out of Waltham.
There's a big honking new BMW dealership blocking the ROW at School Street on the midsection that reverted back to private property. Rest of it is intact (even with 50-years-abandoned rails poking through some gravel lots) but very tight. Watertown is embarking on a very novel and ambitious plan to slowly reclaim the ROW all the way to the Square by gaining narrow easements on the industrial back lots for the trail (and snaking around the BMW dealership), then slowly flipping the industrial property over course of pressure and time for mixed-use redevelopment the length of Arsenal St. with more pedestrian-friendly storefronts. As property gets redeveloped they'll seek to widen and/or buy their easements to piece back together as much of the ROW's original double-track width and buffer as possible (and it is pretty hella wide if you walk the existing trail section) until it's been totally reclaimed. That includes eventually flipping the BMW dealership, since car dealerships tend to be pretty transient tenants that don't stay in one place for more than 20 years.
Only then...and we're literally talking 2050-ish waaaay out of range of anything predictable or knowable about how Peak Oil is going to evolve...is that going to be ripe for a possible transit line. And wide enough to maybe squeeze a rail-with-trail (possible...do walk the trail if you can because it's a lot more spacious than you'd ever think). It's not even possible to hazard a guess.
In the meantime, that's going to be a VERY GOOD trail when it connects to the Alewife/Minuteman/Somerville network. Probably similar daily usage as the Minuteman out to Arlington Ctr. because of the density, Malls, and lack of direct bus connections from Alewife to Watertown Sq. This is absolutely hands-down one of the best additions to the urban trail system save for the GLX Somerville path extension. Practically a bipedal transit line. I just hope they do finally punch a better connection through from Fresh Pond to Danehy Park and Alewife and build that footbridge because it's a frustrating and somewhat dangerous gap.
Porter...you betcha that's a much higher priority for a Green Line transfer. It would be on the docket right now if the decision to split GLX into two branches instead of one that hit Union and Medford wasn't one reached within just the last 4 years when the feasibility study ruled it impossible. By that point the project scope area was set in stone and it couldn't be tacked on. But it is the next logical addition to the Green Line in the early/mid-2020's when we turn the page on some different and hopefully well-reformed fiscal era. Easy to do. The Fitchburg Line is former 4-track width all the way to Beacon St. with exception of the newer Prospect St. bridge at Union which would need an extra hole punched underneath it. Intermediate stop at Park St./Conway Park at the grade crossing.
And at Porter it can duck under in a shallow tunnel underneath the Fitchburg tracks and platform with the roof becoming the new commuter rail trackbed. GL stub platform at the commuter rail doorway in the lobby with a slight ramp down. Then lower the CR trackbed a couple feet when the tunnel undercuts it then construct new retaining walls so it can be covered up with air rights (already studied) development out to Beacon to close that canyon gash between the two cities. Linear park, buildings, Somerville Ave. driveway to Porter Exchange, etc.
It's needed. The Red Line's growth curve demands better radial relief, ultimately more than even Red-Blue alone. The ability to go in reverse-commute direction from Harvard to transfer to Green downtown saves a ton of congestion that would otherwise be slamming the gut at Park. Arlington needs much better commute options, and being able to hop 77 to Green for those destinations enhances their access and commute time a lot. It does a ton for the Somerville Ave. corridor and diverts most people off the 83 and 87. And it links a then- fully developed Northpoint to the rest of Cambridge. File this link under inevitable. Just not till the T's successfully shaken off its immediate predicament.
